OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Trip To Berlin

The recent trip to Berlin gave me a chance to visit Germany for the first time and experience the culture and city properly. Overall, I personally did not find the city as lively as I thought it would have been. Whilst this may have been because we were only there for a few days I felt as though it was very spread out and open, and much less busy than London, which I do miss. Despite this, the landmarks, local shops, restaurants and bars were great and it was fantastic to experience a different culture for a short amount of time. I don't think that I would want to work out in Berlin, despite the design scene being very interesting; I much prefer Leeds and London as cities.

Two of the main things that inspired me and really benefitted me on the trip were meeting a creative at M&CSaatchi and going to EPS51. Some of the points noted from both visits can be read below.



Myself and Elliott were lucky enough to talk with Tim Alexander - a creative at M&CSaatchi Berlin. Their offices were only a 10 minute walk from the hostel, and we were able to talk with him for a solid hour or so. It was great to have quite a laid back chat about his job, how he managed to get into the industry and more. One question that we asked was how he managed to get an internship after leaving Uni. His response was:

'Do you have LinkedIn? If so a shit load of stalking and trying to connect with creative directors through there, sending over your portfolio and a cover letter.'

I am going to sign up to Linkedin fairly soon as have repeatedly heard from many graphic designers that it is crucial in industry for making, and maintaining, contacts. Tim agreed that this, alongside increasing Behance exposure, will definitely help after graduating.

We also asked about portfolios, and what the best way should be for us to show our work. He responded:

'Be yourself, talk the way you would approach someone in real life within your portfolio such as slang words etc. but keep it concise, no more than about 25 pages within a PDF of work because it can get too much.'

This Summer, I am going to try and put together a portfolio that can be sent out to design studios. I will be able to build on this as I progress in Level 06, and will use the suggestions Tim made.

A few of the other points Tim made were that:

'Good work gets killed all the time'

'As a creative person you can always fix something, you can always improve it, you can make it better, always. But there's such a thing called time and that's a pain in the ass sometimes.'

'How you sell yourself is also really important.'

During the chat I was able to talk with Tim about my CoP practical ideas, and he gave me some pieces of inspiration that I should look at. The meeting was very relaxed and it was really interesting to hear how he had gone from living in the UK to Berlin. Whilst the city was not one of my favourite cities visited so far, I would like to consider possibly working abroad in the future.

Going to EPS51 studio was my favourite part of the trip, purely because their approach to editorial design is fascinating. As I want to pursue editorial design and branding in Level 06, it was really eye-opening to see some physical work of a design studio based outside the UK. What struck me most is the typefaces used in their publications and posters, and how each outcomes uses a different typeface. Ben Wittner and Sascha Thoma, the founders, both made points that, as a designer, you should try to vary your aesthetic from project to project, as using the same visual style can become boring and repetitive. This is one point that has inspired me to start looking into different type foundries, and to find a variety of new typefaces that I could use in future projects. I have been using DIN Pro quite a lot in recent projects, therefore am going to try and venture away from using it too often.



Whilst their work is very heavily typography inspired, EPS51 do a lot of cultural work. Another point that they raised is that, as a designer, it is important to make a decision between taking on jobs for enjoyment or jobs for profit. They said that they much rather take on culturally enjoyable jobs than higher paying jobs that they would not enjoy. In a sense, this shows in the work that they have produced - all the publications and prints made follow a consistent cultural theme that, I think, distinguishes EPS51 from other design studios. Their careful use of different languages in editorial pieces is incredible and is definitely one aspect of design that I have not even considered exploring before. I am definitely going to think about what type of jobs I would like to work on in the future and really need to research further into the opinions of some of the studios I would like to work with.